HILLSBOROUGH — The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to examine alternatives to building a solid waste transfer station.

“The basic assumption that a transfer station is the best alternative may be too narrow,” Commissioner Barry Jacobs said Friday.

The county has been planning to build a transfer station, most recently in Bingham Township west of Carrboro. Garbage trucks would bring the county’s trash there to be loaded onto semi-trailers for shipment to an out-of-county landfill.

One alternative would be to have vendors collect and haul the county’s trash, said Bonnie Hauser, co-founder of the grassroots Orange County Voice.

Decades after the Civil Rights Movement, many in the Rogers Road community said they are still fighting a battle for social equality. Hundreds gathered at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally and march to commemorate the leader’s life.

“This rally is so important because you must have a vision, and this visionary gave me a vision,” said the Rev. Robert Campbell, who was the keynote speaker at the event. (read the full story here)

Orange County residents who live near the proposed location for a waste transfer station plan to file suit against the county in the coming weeks.

Residents will follow through on a December letter from their attorney, which asked for more dialogue on the transfer station siting process and threatened a lawsuit, said Susan Walser of Orange County Voice, a group that is supporting the legal action.

Residents will seek to keep the county from building the transfer station at a site in Bingham Township near Orange Grove Road that county commissioners named as their final choice. (Read the whole story here)